


The Very Thought of You

by IxiaGrey



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pining, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 01:51:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19416022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IxiaGrey/pseuds/IxiaGrey
Summary: Our ineffable bois go back to Crowley's flat after the Nopeacolypse. Mild angst and fluff ensues.





	The Very Thought of You

It had been a very, very long day. 

Too many things had been said, and yet not said. There had been arguments, threats, pleas, tears (not that anyone would admit to them), multiple fires, several frantic trips from Point A to Point B, an aborted Apocalypse, and a rather long and silent bus ride back to London. That was more than enough stress for anyone. 

And now the flat was dim, lit only by moonlight and the occasional flash of passing headlights. He’d tried wandering through the rooms, brushing his fingertips over artwork and trembling houseplants, finally settling into a chair near a window with a glass of wine hanging loosely from one hand. The scene outside was peaceful; he wondered how long it would last. 

He wondered if the stars cared that the world nearly ended today. 

It was a close thing, enough to fray his nerves, and the worst of it was the things left unfinished. 

How did humans do it? Such short lives, yet they found the courage to live them, loving fiercely, burning brightly, fighting for every breath, hoping desperately to be remembered when they were gone. 

Would he be remembered? Would anyone miss him, if he were gone? 

Restlessly, he stood, pacing the flat on bare feet, choking down the urge to scream. 

How many times - how many times had he tried? Tried to say what needed to be said, only to pull away, brush it aside, hide behind fear and posturing. Can’t upset the status quo. Can’t risk it. Can’t take that chance. 

The problem, he thought, leaning bonelessly against a wall, had always been that there’d been time. Plenty of it. There was always another chance. It was easy enough, tempting enough, to believe that it could wait. That stolen moments in the back room of a bookshop, riding one behind the other on a bus, sitting side by side on a bench in a park was enough for now. Enough to get by. Enough to tamp down that burning, aching need to be close. 

It wasn’t, of course. It would never be enough. And now, with the threat of punishment hanging over their heads… Humanity had time now, and he didn’t. So many regrets. So many words that would fizzle away unheard, when their respective sides came for them. 

_I love you._

The door to the bedroom hung open, and he stood silently in it, regarding the rumpled bedsheets out of tired eyes. Despite the dim lighting, his love burned in the dark. He took another drink. 

How long? How many times had he tried to say what could never be said? 

Ethereal beings had long memories. None of that human forgetfulness for them, oh no. He remembered all of it. Things left hanging in the air, heavy and unspoken. Words that sounded like one thing, but meant another. 

_I love you._

Thousands of years, meeting hopefully, parting acrimoniously, it was easier, easier to be bitter, to blame others to cover his fear, fear that he’d lose everything. 

And for what? He was going to lose everything anyway. 

All that work, all that fear and stress and panic, for nothing. 

How long had it been, that he knew? 

Before all of this, to be sure. Long before arguments on streetcorners and empty bandstands, before tense words in the Bentley and ex-convents, before this frantic countdown to the end of the world. 

Before he’d held a thermos in cautious, silently terrified hands. Before an argument overheard only by ducks. 

Long before the church. 

Before Hamlet, and the dozens of meetings that came before. He couldn’t be sure, not exactly, but he was pretty sure he could trace it to that tremulous, uncertain “oh, thank you”. 

Had it really been so long? 

_ I love you, I love you, I love you.  _

And after all of that, all those opportunities, all those millenia, all those missed chances - and what good was that fear now, anyway? Nobody had cared a whit until today, all those meetings unremarked, unnoticed, would anyone have even bothered to follow up if the world wasn’t supposed to end? - after all that, when it’d seemed too late to hope, when he’d done the unthinkable, when he’d guaranteed they would come for him, punish him, when he’d crossed the line from ‘unconventional but satisfactory agent’ to ‘traitor’, it still hadn’t been enough. Because just when he’d thought there’d been a chance, an opportunity… 

_ I lost my best friend.  _

Ah. 

For two beings who’d lived as long as they had, the silence that stretched out after those words had lasted an eternity. One pair of eyes hidden behind tinted lenses, the other wobbling uncertainly in a vague, unconnected haze, neither one truly seeing the other… it was for the best that neither was truly in their right mind at the time. 

Still. Still, it had been said. Still, it stung, hanging in the air like ball lightning; he'd refused to allow himself to think on it, then. 

Best friend. 

He finished the last of the wine, miracling the glass full again without really thinking about it. Was that what they were? Was that what he was, despite all of it?

All that time, all that hope, all that anguish. Fearing the other would be lost, taken away, replaced, destroyed. And now it was going to come for them anyway in a matter of hours. Wine or no wine, hope or no hope, caution or no caution. 

He drained the glass again, in one go, and set it just outside the door. 

In the dark bedroom, the shape under the charcoal-grey sheets shifted. 

There was no more time. It was an odd feeling, for an immortal being. Oddly human, except that most humans didn’t know when their end was coming, and he did. Their ends were coming, and it might be in a few hours, or it might be a few days, but it was inescapable. They were both doomed. 

In for a penny, in for a pound; wasn’t that how the saying went? 

Silent feet carried him around the oversized bed, too large for the flat - not that the flat cared for the laws of physics - and too large for one demon, alone. Something sharp stirred within his chest. Had he dared hope…? 

His jacket had been left in a heap beside the bed, hours ago, when he’d first laid down, uncertain and terrified, claiming exhaustion. His shoes sat neatly beside it. Recklessly, he pulled off his shirt and added it to the pile before carefully, carefully slipping back into the bed, unable to relax against the soft plushness of the mattress. He slid a hand under the pile of sheets, seeking the warmth of the body curled there, what little courage he had bolstered by… how many glasses of wine had he finished since he’d rolled out of the bed, unable to sleep? 

An inarticulate sound emerged from the cocoon of sheets, tugging a smile to the corner of his lips. He sought out and ran his fingers through the tousled hair he found, colorless in the faint moonlight that dared creep through the windows. For several long moments, he was content to brush his fingers through the hair that tried to creep down over that smooth, peaceful face, until a hand snaked out of the sheets to wrap around his waist, pulling him close. 

His breath caught in his throat. 

Why, why did he have to be so bright? Like a bonfire against the night, brilliant and fierce and burning. 

A pair of sleepy, golden eyes - and why was it nothing else had color in this grey room but those eyes? - peered out from the bundle of sheets. “‘Ziraphale.” 

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he murmured. “Couldn’t sleep.” 

The hand around his waist tensed, and he couldn’t help but shake his head, carding his fingers through Crowley’s hair again. “It’s fine,” he whispered, understanding. “Just thinking.” 

“Y’ think too much,” came the reply, continuing to tug him down, into the warm cocoon, and he went, unresisting. For once, unresisting. It was an unpleasant echo of an earlier conversation, but he couldn’t help but wonder, now, if it had been accurate. 

“Crowley?” 

“Ngk?” 

“I -” 

The words died in his chest, something tight in his throat still getting in the way, faced with those golden eyes staring unblinking from the dark. He swallowed, hard. The silence threatened to stretch out interminably, and then he felt Crowley’s hand tense, sharp and delicious, against his lower back as those slitted yellow lights closed slowly. 

The weight next to him shifted as a soft sound escaped him - snakes don’t have claws, and where did that sharpness against his skin come from? - and those eyes he loved so much appeared above him, wide open and awake. 

“I know, angel.” 

Aziraphale gasped as soft lips brushed too-gently against his before coming to rest below his ear. “I’ve always known.” 

Crowley settled his weight down atop his angel, like a key finally finding its home, and all the uncertainty ran out of Aziraphale like water out of a bucket. He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms tightly around his demon, and let out a breath he’d been holding for nearly 6,000 years.   
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Everyone seems to assume it was Crowley who knew early on, and Aziraphale who realized they were in love later. I couldn't help but wonder what it'd be like if Aziraphale had known all along.


End file.
